Bill could help tribe secure land for casino

A bill filed yesterday by U.S. Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-North Dakota, could pave the way for the Mashpee Wampanoag to get land into trust for a casino.

GEORGE BRENNAN

A bill filed yesterday by U.S. Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-North Dakota, could pave the way for the Mashpee Wampanoag to get land into trust for a casino.

Dorgan, chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs committee, proposed an amendment to the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, which would give tribes recognized after that date the same rights to put land into federal trust as those acknowledged before that date.

That includes the Mashpee tribe, which gained federal recognition in 2007, and hopes to build an Indian casino on 539 acres in Middleboro. The tribe has also applied to put 140 acres in Mashpee into federal trust for housing and other tribe initiatives.

That application has been stalled by a February ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court that stripped the U.S. Department of the Interior's authority to take land into trust for tribes recognized after 1934. Though that case involved a land dispute between Rhode Island Gov. Donald Carcieri and the Narragansett Tribe, it had far-reaching implications for all tribes, including the Wampanoag, according to legal experts.

Dorgan's bill provides a so-called "Carcieri fix" that restores the Interior Department's authority in land cases.

"The legislation I'm introducing today is necessary to reaffirm the Secretary's authority to take lands into trust for Indian tribes, regardless of when they were recognized by the federal government," Dorgan said in introducing the bill.

The bill amends the 1934 act by changing a few words, chief among them removing the word "now" which Supreme Court justices noted in their decision.

"The language is strong," Mashpee Wampanoag Vice Chairman Aaron Tobey said yesterday. "Obviously, it's Indian friendly"» That language was similar to something the tribes had proposed early on. Now it's a matter of what happens next with the bill."

In July, tribal council Chairman Cedric Cromwell went to Washington to lobby Larry EchoHawk, the newly appointed assistant secretary for Indian Affairs, saying that the Carcieri decision paralyzed the land-into-trust process and essentially made the Wampanoag a sovereign nation with no land.

Just because a fix has been suggested doesn't mean it will get approved, said Rich Young, president of Casinofacts, an anti-casino organization in Middleboro.

His group and others will continue to lobby Congress to use this as an opportunity to fix problems with the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, he said.

Even if the Carcieri fix is approved, the tribe faces some significant hurdles. The tribe reached an impasse with its investors that remains unresolved and questions have been raised about the tribe's historical ties to Middleboro.